Coston's Complaint: Planned Parenthood Accused of Medicaid Fraud

Monday, February 13, 2012

Planned Parenthood Accused of Medicaid Fraud

Medicaid and Medicare fraud is rampant. Last week a man was sentenced to three years in prison for shipping unwanted penis pumps to diabetes patients. This man bilked Medicare in the tune of $2.2 million over a four year period, before he was finally caught.

IBM came up with a software program that would help fight entitlement fraud. The Obama administration turned them down. What is ostensibly disturbing is that IBM’s CEO was willing to give away this product for free. And given the amount of money the taxpayers are being scammed, we could’ve used this technology.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that Medicare and Medicaid lost more than $70 billion to improper payments alone in fiscal 2010 — equivalent to an estimated $900 billion over 10 years — and some experts peg the losses even higher at $100 billion annually. No other government program is as rife with such erroneous, if not criminal, behavior. Harvard professor and author of License to Steal Malcolm Sparrow suggested in Senate testimony that fraud and abuse across our healthcare system could be a quarter of total spending.

One has to wonder why the Obama administration turned this offer down. Can anyone say Planned Parenthood? That’s right. Planned Parenthood is under investigation for defrauding the taxpayers. The Alliance Defense Fund filed the following report outlining the shenanigans of Planned Parenthood:

* Federal and state audits of family planning funding have found a minimum of $95,742,982.15 in waste, abuse, and potential fraud from 1995 to 2009;

* Of this waste, abuse, and potential fraud, at least $7,867,547.15 has been identified in separate state audits to have occurred in a total of seven audited Planned Parenthood affiliates in New York state, California, Washington state, and Texas due to a variety of abuses, including extensive overbilling and illegal billing for abortion-related procedures that are ineligible for government reimbursement under federal laws, including the Hyde Amendment.

* These audited amounts include both state and federal funds under the various matching formulas for these programs;

* In addition, federal audits of family planning programs from 1995 to 2009 have identified a total of nearly $88 million in overbilling, with the sum rising as high as $99 million according to the Inspector General’s Office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;

* Of the 38 federal family planning audits covering federal funding streams and 19 states, two audits, in New Jersey and New York, specifically identified Planned Parenthood, and only Planned Parenthood, as a source of overbilling in the family planning programs. The combined waste in these two audits alone was $1,516,312.

* All told, extensive waste, abuse, and potential fraud have been identified to date in 9 percent of Planned Parenthood’s 79 U.S. affiliates. Two others, one in Texas and one in California, are the subject of federal whistleblower lawsuits by former Planned Parenthood employees alleging fraud;

ADF concludes: “The extent of possible waste, abuse, and potential fraud at the nation’s remaining percent of Planned Parenthood affiliates is unknown and merits congressional review by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This investigation is especially pertinent given Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s extensive management, operational, and fiscal authority over the policies and conduct of its affiliates, as well as its ongoing requirement that each of its affiliates avoid deficits in its expendable net assets.”